Day 5?

I had a few busy days so I haven't posted daily as planned. I'll keep it short:

Foods
I'm still eating vegan and I don't have any issues with the foods. The recipes are yummy and easy to prepare. The only thing is: it needs planning and time. I found out that preparing my lunch the evening before works best. I often make a double batch from a dinner and then change it up a bit for lunch by adding some veggies, salad or some carbs. Lots of people believe that eating vegan costs a lot of money. I've noticed that I spent a lot of money on some basics (seeds, nuts, oils, supplements, super foods, etc) but that the weekly costs only consist of veggies and fruits. Furthermore I spend way less on lunch and drinks at work as I don't buy any sandwiches or drinks anymore. I actually think I spend less money on foods than with my previous vegetarian diet. I must say that I am 'freestyling' a bit, I don't just eat recipes from the VFF book. I use the basic principles and mix it up with ingredients that I have in stock. I replace nuts with other nuts, veggies for veggies, etc. But I keep to the principles of eating low carb at night, eating breakfast daily, eating vegan, and not eating after 19.00.

Sports
I went to sport once this week. I'm planning to attend a Zumba class tomorrow night so that's 2 times in one week, my goal :)

Drinks
I drink a lot of matcha shakes, water and green tea. I sometimes spike my water with some fruits, freshly squeezed juice or some organic apple sauce. I always drink tea without sugar so that's not a problem at all. I drank some coke this week, but am quite satisfied with how little. From today on I am sticking to the non-coke plan.

Smoking
Yeah that's hard. I still smoke, but I smoke about 10 cigarets a day, sometimes less, not more. For now I am happy about that, but I still want to reduce it until I quit smoking.

Results
I haven't stepped foot on a scale yet so I don't have any results thus far.

Next few weeks
I like eating this way and hope to continue it for longer as the prescribed 30 days. I am not sure I'll be eating vegan for 100%. I must say I have broken the cycle of eating tons of cheese, and I don't want to go back. I still eat gluten free and I notice so many changes in my body. The stomach aches are gone, I have more energy, etc. So yeah I do want to make these changes for a long time, but I think I'll eat cheese at dinner parties etc., but not at home or work. I haven't quite decided yet, I'll figure it out in the next couple of weeks. I have some dinner parties and in 2 weeks I'll be taking a weekend-trip with some colleagues and I'll see how eating vegan turns out then.

That was my recap of the first few days, time to go make my salad for lunch tomorrow ;)

Vegan for fit and other challenges!

Day 1....
There it goes... it's day one of the VFF Challenge! The book encourages to set goals that are realistic enough and can be achieved in 30 days. Other health challenges are also encouraged, so I am proud to present my list of challenges:

1. Vegan for fit
No sugar, no soda, no carbs after 16hr, all-vegan, all organic. That's the challenge! It also means thoroughly thinking about what you put in your mouth. Theoretically I can munch on vegan cookies all day, but that's not as healthy as it's intended to be. I will use all the recipes in his book, but will adapt them to be gluten free and soy free and I'll use whatever I have in the kitchen. I am not buying white almond butter when I still have brown almond butter etc.

2. No smoking...
I have been trying to quit smoking since I can remember... It costs lots of money, is unhealthy and when I think about it there is no good reason to smoke....other than the fact that I am addicted to it. But how about having a few awful withdrawal-weeks instead of awful years of smoking...sounds logical.. As I have way lower stress-levels as compared to a year ago, I feel up for this challenge. It will also approximately save me 1900 euros a year....! That's a crazy amount of money to blow up in the air... And I'll save about 2 lungs as well ;). So here it goes...no smoking for 30 days but actually for the rest of my life... Somehow it's not logical to eat as healthy as possible, detox your body from all toxins in other foods and than infuse your body with toxins from smoking. Also, I found out that cigarets are not vegan at all! They contain animal products and they perform horrible animal experiments on animals to test their cigarets. So no more cigarets for me!

3. Sports
I have actually been sporting a while now, but lately I have been too occupied with other things. So it's back to doing Zumba twice a week! And of course I'd like to do even more but the challenge is to do sports at least twice a week. I love Zumba, it always makes me smile, it's good for the body and mind!

4. No soda, no caffein!
Well that's actually part of the VFF challenge, but for me it's a separate goal as I am a soda-junkie! Cola, red bull...yummy! But so unhealthy! So according to the VFF challenge I need to drink 2 L of water and 1,5 L of green tea every day. I won't measure it exactly but I'll try to keep up with that. No caffein means no caffein from coke and red bull, matcha tea is also stuffed with caffein but is a superfood. I'll drink that when I can find it somewhere.

The ultimate goal
Is of course to look like one of these (girls then, no sex change operations here ;))

The measurements and goals
Well I'm not going to publish my weight or the width of my hips here... but in 30 days I will publish my results. My goal is to lose 5kg in 30 days, I'd like it to be more but I think 5kg is more realistic. I will not weigh myself daily but try to do it a maximum of once a week. That's actually quit difficult as it's so tempting to weigh myself daily.

So there it is written-in-stone or at least published on the internet... my goals! Now I really need to keep myself to them or otherwise I'll be publicly ashamed ;). Tomorrow (or maybe tonight) I'll publish how my first day went!